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How to Make a Disney Cruise Lapbook

January 21, 2013 By sami

Are you wondering how to make a Disney Cruise Lapbook?

Perhaps you’re wondering what a Lapbook is in the first place?

Our family is taking a 6 night Disney Cruise to the Western Caribbean on the Disney Magic (leaving out of one of their new ports – Galveston, TX where kids sail free right now!). While we’re super excited, we also realize that means the kids are going to miss a lot of school.

So I went to their teachers to ask how we can maximize their learning AND fun while onboard the Disney Cruise; their answer: a Disney Cruise Lapbook!

I searched the web and couldn’t find anyone who had made a Disney Cruise Lapbook, so for any of you who want to try something similar, I thought I’d share two videos on the topic:
1. How to Make a Disney Cruise Lapbook (which you can watch below)
2. How to Fill your Disney Cruise Lapbook (coming soon)

We’re making three Lapbooks to take aboard our Disney Magic Cruise:
1. At Sea (the biggest of our Lapbooks since that’s where we’ll be spending the majority of our time)
2. Cozumel (our first Port of Call)
3. Grand Cayman (our second Port of Call)

Before embarking (pun intended!) on making your Disney Cruise Lapbooks, make sure to gather all the necessary supplies (easy to find at most office supply stores or around the house):
*Colored 3-Tab File Folders
*Glue Sticks
*Scissors (adult & kid size)
*Tape (Invisible & Packing Tape)
*Pencils
*A clean, flat surface to fold and glue on

The decorative elements like stickers and mini-books will come in the next lesson, so don’t worry about those now.

This how-to video will walk you through how to make & fold a basic lapbook, as well as how to add pages to your lapbook, how to add a folder to your lapbook and how to make a multi-folder lap book:

(I know it’s long, but I wanted to be thorough for any of you who have never done it before. It’s also broken down into segments, so you can fast forward to special sections of interest if you like)

Make sure to stay tuned for more tips on how to prepare for a Disney Cruise, as well as reports from our Disney Cruise Line adventure!

Filed Under: Disney Cruise Line Tagged With: disney cruise, education, folder, Kids, Lapbook, school, walt disney world

Quaver Music Mondays Week 4: Middle C & the Grand Staff

July 2, 2012 By sami

Quaver Music Mondays 300x300 Quaver Music Mondays Week 4: Middle C & the Grand Staff
It’s week 4 of Quaver Music Mondays on SamiCone.com and we’re finally getting to meet Middle C & the Grand Staff this week.

If you’re following along each week, you’ll notice we took a week off last week. I got sidelined due to Tropical Storm Debby while on a blogger trip in Florida, so didn’t make it back in time for our weekly lesson, so we’re picking right up where we left off

I have to admit, this has been my favorite week thus far: The DVD is one of my favorites (both in terms of knowledge & entertainment), the lessons are very practical and the worksheets were exactly what we needed to drive the message home.

Take a sneak peek at this episode:

Our favorite worksheet actually laid out the keyboard on a piece of paper with the names of the notes on the keys! The ironic thing is that just the other day, our daughter was asking us how to play “Jingle Bells” and she was trying to sound it out by ear. Now, she’s been able to learn “Mary Had a Little Lamb”, “Jingle Bells” & “When the Saints Go Marching In”…all while driving in the back of the van!

Now some people may wonder why it took 4 weeks to finally learn about Middle C, but I think that’s the problem with many music education systems: they rush right in to teaching kids to play without laying the foundation and teaching the important of music theory that will be build on for the rest of their lives. It’s just one more thoughtful piece of Quaver Music that I appreciate

Of course, the DVDs really make Quaver Music, but even if you don’t have the DVDs, you can check out these fun online activities at QuaverMusic.com this week:

Exploring Middle C & the Grand Staff with QuaverMusic.com
Free Activities:

Go to the Studio and to QComposer. Click File – Open – QDo’s. Try QDo’s Level 1-01 through 1-03 to get acquainted with Middle C and the Staff. Carry on to use the Musical Alphabet to create a melody!

Premium Features:

Use 25 QuaverNotes to make your QComposer piece into an MP3! Then you’ll be able to find it in your Music Room Boombox.

Now I will say that my 6 year old tired easily of the QComposer – it was a little over his head to do on his own (he doesn’t have a great attention span!). If I had been right there next to him the whole time, I think he’d really get the hang of it, but I wanted to see what he could do on his own.

SummerFun Quaver Music Mondays Week 4: Middle C & the Grand Staff

We’re now halfway through the summer and our kids have gotten a great musical foundation to build on. How do you feel your kids are progressing?

Filed Under: Education, Family Tagged With: dvd, education, grand, homeschool, Kids, Middle C, monday, music, quaver, staff, summer, teacher, website

Quaver Music Mondays Week 3: Duration & Pitch

June 19, 2012 By sami

Quaver Music Mondays 300x300 Quaver Music Mondays Week 3: Duration & Pitch
Welcome back to Quaver Music Mondays on SamiCone.com! It’s week 3 and we’re studying duration & pitch this week.

Yes, I know, I know – it’s Tuesday…but such is life in the Cone Home It seems the minute I set a schedule in our house, something happens to derail it. But that’s ok, that doesn’t mean we’ve given up on our plan. So on that note (pun intended), we pick up Quaver Music Mondays today (If you really want to be technical about it, my kids still studied music with Quaver yesterday, but I just didn’t have time to actually post it on schedule

This week, we really dug into the online world of QuaverMusic.com.

I’ve admittedly kept my kids off the computer more than most parents might at this age. Call it an aversion to screen time or call it mommy blogger syndrome (meaning the kids can’t play on the computer because mom is always on it)…whatever it is, I realized my kids need to start learning their way around the keyboard – hence my excitement for the Quaver Music Education system.

20120619 135357 Quaver Music Mondays Week 3: Duration & Pitch

Now granted, I haven’t been around the online educational world for a very long time, but I have never seen an educational website that is so complete, easy to understand and fun to play along with! Quaver himself (in cartoon form) literally walks around the screen with you and points you where you need to go and what you need to do next. Of course, you can navigate without Quaver’s help…it’s just up to you.

20120619 135409 Quaver Music Mondays Week 3: Duration & Pitch

I was amazed that after watching the DVD just one time, my 7 year old was able to play games where she successfully identified pitch, major/minor/augmented chords & note duration. One minute she was playing carnival games in EarIQ and the next she was writing her own sheet music on the Grand Staff with QComposer. Take a look:

I love that you’ve been following us along the journey. Remember, even if you don’t have the DVDs, you can check out these fun online activities at QuaverMusic.com this week:

Exploring Duration and Pitch with QuaverMusic.com
Free Activities:

Visit EarIQ, located behind the organ in Quaver’s Lab! Try the Clown Pitch game and see what score your kids can get. Then go to the Intervals Ball Toss and see who can get the highest score. Users can earn Awards by playing well!
Work through the Step by Step Helps in QComposer (located in the Studio) to prepare for putting pitches on the lines and spaces.
Try the QArcade game QMeasureUp to reinforce the durations of notes. This game (located in your Music Room) is a little tough for younger kids but would be a good challenge for older students!

Premium Features:

All music is created using different pitches so the best thing to do is learn a song! Hop the Metro to Quaver’s Disco Venue for just 5 QuaverNotes. Click Menu and then Music to open the Pop Music Boombox. Listen and learn the Disco Penguin Song and create a Disco Penguin dance.

SummerFun Quaver Music Mondays Week 3: Duration & Pitch

What did your kids learn from last week? Do you feel QuaverMusic.com is a viable online resource for helping teach kids about music?

Filed Under: Education, Family Tagged With: duration, dvd, education, homeschool, Kids, monday, music, pitch, quaver, summer, teacher, website, week 3

Quaver Music Mondays Week 2: Tempo & Rhythm

June 11, 2012 By sami

Quaver Music Mondays 300x300 Quaver Music Mondays Week 2: Tempo & Rhythm
Welcome back to Quaver Music Mondays on SamiCone.com! It’s week 2, which means we’re exploring tempo & rhythm this week.

We found ourselves on the road unexpectedly today to visit a sick family member in Florida, so our weekly music lesson is already turning out to be atypical. But still, since I brought our Quaver DVDs in the van, the kids were able to watch the second DVD (containing lessons 3 & 4) while we were on the road!

I also photocopied some of the worksheets from the Teacher’s Guide for the kids to work on after watching the DVDs and in typical Cone kid fashion, they got creative as always.

One thing I love about Quaver is that the passion behind the product is equal to the quality of education contained in the product. What this means is that these lessons are equally applicable and adaptable for kids as young as pre-schoolers all the way through secondary education. There are also so many practical suggestions for putting the lessons into action that often require little else besides your own two hands and some imagination!

Case in point this week:

When learning about tempo, you can play a variety of music tracks and have your kids clap to the beat or even hold up cards in a race to announce the correct tempo. Of course there are great games and activities on QuaverMusic.com (see below) that coincide with everything they’re watching in the DVDs.

Another reason why I think music education is so important, regardless of if you ever think your child will become a ‘musician’, is that it introduces them to and gives them a foundation for a multitude of other worthy areas of study, including linguistics, mathematics and so much more! Even though I graduated from high school 20 years ago, I can still remember specific instances throughout a variety of classes when I thought to myself, “I’m so glad my parents started me in music education when I was little!”

If you’re following along with our Quaver Music Mondays, why not let your kids check out these fun online activities at QuaverMusic.com this week:

Exploring Tempo and Rhythm with QuaverMusic.com:

Free Activities:

Go to the Studio and to QGrooves. Work through the interactive help menu, then do QDo Number 1 to learn how to use QGrooves!
Take the Metro from the QuaverMusic.com homepage to the Pop music venue at Wembley Stadium! Click the boombox and learn one of the songs using the karaoke machine. Sing it while stepping or dancing out the beat.

Premium Features:

Use QuaverNotes to buy the hip-hop or techno drum loops from the Store for QGrooves. Using these, create 16 measure drum tracks at Largo, Moderato and Presto tempos. Create rhymes, raps, and useful mnemonics to the rhythm. See which tempos work the best for that kind of thing.

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SummerFun Quaver Music Mondays Week 2: Tempo & Rhythm

What did your kids learn from last week? Do you feel QuaverMusic.com is a viable online resource for helping teach kids about music?

Filed Under: Education, Family, My Story Tagged With: dvd, education, homeschool, Kids, monday, music, quaver, rhythm, summer, teacher, tempo, website, week 2

Quaver Music Mondays: Beat & Meter

June 4, 2012 By sami

Quaver Music Mondays 300x300 Quaver Music Mondays: Beat & Meter Welcome to Quaver Music Mondays on SamiCone.com!

You remember me talking about Quaver, right?

Quaver Music was created as a supplement for elementary music teachers and homeschoolers as a way to pass on a passion for music through high-energy and entertaining DVDs that each cover an an essential music element. The 15 DVD set also includes full-color guides with teaching tips, hands-on student projects, and other tools that go along with each episode.

So when I realized school was ending, I wanted to be purposeful about spending time with my kids this summer…but I also wanted to make sure to accomplish a few very important things: learning more about music (specifically piano), working on the computer, teaching them tennis and reading more.

As a wife, blogger & mom who has never homeschooled (or thought anything of the sort was possible), my ideas for how to structure summer learning, yet make it fun, didn’t exactly come together as quickly as I would have liked. But that’s when it dawned on my: I realized I could accomplish several of these objectives with just one program: Quaver Music!

So every Monday this summer, our family will have Quaver Music Mondays where we’ll be going through different units and showing you how you can do the same thing with your family…even if you don’t have the DVDs! If you want a sneak peak of what Quaver is all about, you can check out a video preview (warning, you WILL get hooked!):

This week we’re starting with the basic building blocks of music, as found on the first DVD in Unit 1 (Music Theory) of Quaver’s Marvelous World of Music: Beat (Episode 1) & Meter (Episode 2).

After watching the 15 minute episodes (2 come on each DVD and we find it hard to stop after just one!), the kids completed the worksheets found in the back of the Teacher Guide:

Even if you don’t have the DVDs, we’ve come up with fun (& free!) activities for you to follow along our Quaver Music Mondays online with your family!

Exploring Beat and Meter at QuaverMusic.com:

Check out QBackBeat:

Go to Quaver’s Studio and click on the drums to find QBackBeat. Here, your kids can compose drum loops by interacting with Quaver’s drum machine. Build your own kit of drums, make a drum solo, or load a song and play along.
Start out with a QDo: go to the File tab at the bottom of your screen, Click OPEN, and then the QDo’s tab, and OPEN the first QDo to let Gwenda walk you through a QBackBeat project!
When you’re ready to take things up a notch, you can use QuaverNotes – the site’s virtual currency at less than a penny each – to purchase new drum sounds for your Drum Kit! Click Kit Lab or the Store Tab to access these Premium Features.
Try Quaver’s SuperSolo activity. Here’s a great idea for using QBackBeat in your lesson right from Quaver! Link to blog: http://quavermusicblog.com/2011/10/18/qtorial-6-improvising-supersolo-with-quavers-qbackbeat/

CM Qbackbeat 300x183 Quaver Music Mondays: Beat & Meter

Play QMeasureUp:

Head to your personal QArcade to play this super fun Mini-Game reinforcing Meter! Click the Music Room Tab at the bottom of your screen and then click on the Arcade Machine. Play this tetris-style game at the Easy Level to start, and dig into more detail with this Behind-the-Scenes blog post: http://quavermusicblog.com/2012/01/19/behind-the-scenes-qmeasureup/

SummerFun Quaver Music Mondays: Beat & Meter

So come back every Monday through the end of July for more fun & free music education activities with Quaver Music Mondays! What do you hope your kids will learn by the end of the summer?

Filed Under: Education, Family, My Story Tagged With: beat, dvd, education, homeschool, Kids, meter, monday, music, quaver, summer, teacher, website

Quaver brings high energy & fun to learning music!

July 16, 2011 By sami

This big green ‘Q’ has garnered a lot of attention lately. If you haven’t heard, Quaver Music is rockin’ (pun intended) the way kids are learning about music these days. With high energy and fun, Quaver introduces young people to his ‘wonderful world of music’ in a way they’ve never experienced before!

I was fortunate enough to be a part of a focus group last year where I got a sneak peak of the 30 unit box set, along with their learning units and website.

I can honestly say I’ve never seen anything like it.

Quaver (Graham Hepburn) leads kids on a musical adventure though his laboratory, into his studio and with the help of kooky characters along the way (like my personal favorite, talking busts of Vivaldi, Mozart & Bach…who also have a great sense of wit about them!). Take a look for yourself:

I recently tried to start teaching my 5 & 6 year old children to play the piano. However, trying to convey beat, rhythm, note names and meter just seemed to be a little too big of a task for this mom who hasn’t played piano since the day she left for college (let’s just say it’s been awhile). Not being able to afford private music lessons for two children right now, I can’t tell you how frustrating it was to see my two kids who obviously wanted so desperately to learn a new instrument, yet I didn’t have the skills to teach them.

Enter Quaver.

Once we received the 15 DVD set (in one of the most creative packaging boxes, I might add), I started playing them for my kids in the van. Each DVD contains two units and with each unit being only 15 minutes, they are the perfect length to captivate my children’s attention without losing it along the way.

But what’s most impressive is that each DVD covers an essential music element: theory, instruments and ensembles, composers and music history, and music styles. Pair that information with Quaver’s passions for music and unique cast of characters to help, and you’ve got a winner.

Perhaps most impressive is the litany of resources Quaver provides to complement the DVDs, regardless of whether you’re trying to teach your kids at home like me, teaching music to kids in a school classroom or using it in a homeschool setting – Quaver has resources for each!

Thanks to Quaver, my kids are now on the journey to learning the piano. My daughter will proudly tell you she’s already earned ’3 stars’ on the exercises she’s perfected and is on her way to more. I’m also grateful to Quaver for helping to sponsor my trip to the Savvy Blogging Summit this year.

If you’re here in Colorado Springs with me, keep an eye out for my purple Quaver shirt today: if you find me and tell me about your kids, I’ll have a special Quaver goodie for you!

Learn more about Quaver on their Parent/Teacher site here!